So as I've been indexing all the early reports of smoking beta-carboline alkaloids and using them to potentiate tryptamines I was pondering to myself why the reports of smoking beta-carbolines with DMT were so sparse prior to the early to mid 2000's.
It's really quite simple. DMT was not widely available to people to conduct these experiments with till around that time. The earliest published account available is that Gracie and Zarkov document (they were some of the very few people that had access to synthetic DMT and botanical dimensions ayahuasca vine to be performing these experiments way back in 1985, prior to ER and the plant extracted DMT movement) and they offer full credit to Terence and Dennis and their caapi joints. In their 1994 account, Terence and Dennis in turn quite readily cede that this technology had been in use in jungle tradition long before they stumbled upon (dare I say "re-invented" ) it.
We have those old pipes with the beta-carboline and tryptamine residue from thousands of years ago. We have a long standing tradition of snuffs containing mixtures of beta-carbolines and tryptamines. We have the ayahausca tradition also dating back into pre-history. With the snuff blowing machismo and ayahuasca enemas and the like, how likely is it that in all those thousands of years, no one figured out they can smoke this stuff? As an aside, you have the middle eastern tradition of using P. Harmala seed as incense dating way way back as well, which itself is more or less vaporizing beta-carboline alkaloids, throw some acacia resin in there and you have a room filling "fumahuasca" approximating changa smoke.
Back to the modern era, by the mid 90's with The Entheogen Review, DMT World, alt.drugs.dmt, Erowid, etc. you begin to see the first stirrings of plant extraction just starting to take hold. You folks down under had the advantage of the abundant acacia trees and quickly had the crystals to experiment with, while all those silly Americans were still trying to coax mixed alkaloid goo out of the grasses and bushes. You can see from these early sources that the beta-carboline potentiation technology was well known and people were actively experimenting with everything they could get their hands on which was generally passion flower, LSD, and mushrooms, with a few lucky or well connected folks sourcing out harmine/harmaline and syrian rue or caapi to try with their shrooms and acid.
It's not till the late 90's that Of the Jungle and other vendors begin to arrive on the scene offering up the mimosa bark and caapi vine and rue seeds to the readership of obscure psychedelic zines, books, and forums. From what I understand, this is when the oz folks with their tradition of acacia crystal start having reasonable access to the vine, and as others who were there have pointed out, those who were in the know were absolutely engaged in active development of beta-carboline potentiated tryptamines. I suspect it may have been on Dorge's old blogspot or maybe dmt.tribe.net, but I also recall the early information was that infusing acacia crystal into caapi leaf and/or vine shavings arose because of the fact it was difficult to get enough vine to drink in oz with the legal status and limited amount of (mostly US based) vendors. You folks down under know that story better than I.
By the early to mid 2000's you have significantly more information available about this stuff on the web with psychedelic forums really taking hold and significantly better access to the botanicals through dozens of different vendors. I personally was extracting rue alkaloids and making concentrated "caapi clay" to smoke with DMT circa 2004-2005 following teks on Tribe.net and DMT World and can attest there was only the faintest murmur of this thing called changa taking hold down in oz at that time in those fora.
Call it changa, call it elfbush, call it vapohuasca, call it what you will. The technology of potentiating tryptamines with beta-carbolines via any and every route of administration (including but certainly not limited to smoking) is very ancient indeed. Tracing the history of it, it really seems to boil down to having access to the right materials, as the published information has been readily available to those that would seek it for at least 3 decades. Really if anyone can be credited with bringing the changa technology to the hands of the masses, it's Of the Jungle and those other early vendors that were the ones providing the caapi and rue to the burgeoning acacia and grass extraction communities at the turn of the millennium.
The changa meme itself was well established and running rampant as an open source technology for quite some time before chocobeastie made any moves to claim ownership of it. Given the fact that he had ample opportunity over and over again as it came up repeatedly on SA forums and Bluelight where he was an active member since the early 2000's, it's a bit curious that he didn't have moar information to offer up about it over all that time. Then after multiple teks and hundreds of posts about it on the Nexus and elsewhere, well after it had become open source community property spawning thousands of personal and unique blends sharing the basis of the fundamental beta-carboline potentiation technology, only then does he appear with a tek for one specific blend and grandiose claims that not only did he spawn the name that went viral, but having the audacity to claim that he invented the technology despite decades of publications demonstrating evidence to the contrary.
It really is just too little, too late, changa is the property of the collective now. It's a living, growing, and evolving folk technology and to make any claims of ownership at this point in the game is just fatuous.
